The Game
The game is called Naxy, and on the planet Cray it is not all done in good fun : the game is to the death. Two opposing teams are locked in a long standing grudge match where the only way to win is to kill your opponants, and when the Doctor arrives he is drafted by one team to play for them while Nyssa falls in with one of the opposing team's ranks. The Doctor's intention was not to play Naxy but to meet a man he considers to be his hero: the famous negotiator Lord Carlisle. Carlisle's mission is to negotiate a truce and put an end to Naxy, but his record is not all it seems, nor are the people surrounding him.
The Game is actually a 6 part adventure, the first one in the original Big Finish adventures range, but the whole thing is still under 2 hours in length, so it's actually six short episodes, and there's really no reason for that. For a story that only takes place over the span of a couple days there is little need for the epic length format. Writer Darien Henry says in the liner notes that he only did it because the traditional six part story was so difficult to do, but I maintain that making siz shorter episodes rather than four standard ones just to prove some strange point is really a waste. The flow of the plot suffers from the choppiness of being iterrupted on a shorter interval, and I found myself missing things when my attention started to wander.
The Doctor as a gladiator has never happened to this extent, yet here he is in a game where people are being killed around him with hockey sticks tipped with blades and the locals screaming for more blood. He does quite well, though, Peter Davison managing to grunt and yell at all the right times as if he really is in a fight for his life (although to be fair who knows what really goes on in those recording sessions).
And from the show's past comes William Russell, not reprising his role as Ian, mind you, but as Carlisle himself. At one point he muses that "The Doctor is my best friend," which has a certain irony to it considering Russell's past in the series. He's sounding a bit older though, sometimes as if he is speaking with something in his mouth. Maybe it's chicken.
So. No more six parters unless there is going to be 180 minutes of material to warrant it. I have spoken.
NEXT EPISODE : THE EMPIRE OF DEATH
The Game is actually a 6 part adventure, the first one in the original Big Finish adventures range, but the whole thing is still under 2 hours in length, so it's actually six short episodes, and there's really no reason for that. For a story that only takes place over the span of a couple days there is little need for the epic length format. Writer Darien Henry says in the liner notes that he only did it because the traditional six part story was so difficult to do, but I maintain that making siz shorter episodes rather than four standard ones just to prove some strange point is really a waste. The flow of the plot suffers from the choppiness of being iterrupted on a shorter interval, and I found myself missing things when my attention started to wander.
The Doctor as a gladiator has never happened to this extent, yet here he is in a game where people are being killed around him with hockey sticks tipped with blades and the locals screaming for more blood. He does quite well, though, Peter Davison managing to grunt and yell at all the right times as if he really is in a fight for his life (although to be fair who knows what really goes on in those recording sessions).
And from the show's past comes William Russell, not reprising his role as Ian, mind you, but as Carlisle himself. At one point he muses that "The Doctor is my best friend," which has a certain irony to it considering Russell's past in the series. He's sounding a bit older though, sometimes as if he is speaking with something in his mouth. Maybe it's chicken.
So. No more six parters unless there is going to be 180 minutes of material to warrant it. I have spoken.
NEXT EPISODE : THE EMPIRE OF DEATH
Labels: Nyssa, The 5th Doctor
posted by Sean Hoover @ 2:26 PM
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